Fillosofly
FLY AGARIC 23:
Constructivist Synchronicity?
Dr. Wilson reached me through his books at the relatively early age of twenty, alerting me to the practical benefits of writing down dreams and synchronicities.I attribute my early independent consciousness research to Dr. Wilson and his book 'Cosmic Trigger' in particular combined with my will to try to contact some of the people from that book itself and share my findings with my friends, family and local community, my will in 1998.
During the late 1990's most of my friends were without Internet access and only small bands of 'turned on artists, musicians and trippers' could verify the kinds of surrealist signals I detected in Bob's writing. Just what the Doctor ordered for a young twenty something walking the labyrinth of altered estates of consciousness in an altering and somewhat faultering social state. Around the Black Country area of the U.K.
SHANNANIGUMS WAVE BOOK 1 CHATER 1B by flyagaric23
Throughout 1999 I recorded dreams in dream diaries that I kept by my bedside, and have experienced synchronicities directly related to these dreams in my waking life, consistently over roughly 14 years now, to take extra care when dabbling in the paranormal, Magick and Occult sciences, as they all have parts that have worked for me. I extend this call for 'care and attention' to others who maybe experiencing similar phenomena, and advise not to attatch any static and fundamental beliefs to these experiences. A theme throughout Bob's books that I hope you have noticed
Around 1999 I listed characters in a dream team. I wanted to bring together into a project somehow with living characters from Bob's books and maybe Bob himself? Terence Mckenna (whom was saddly diagnosed with a devastating brain tumor around 99) Jack Sarfatti; plus my own network of like-minded individuals in the Black Country, all my muckers' whom this work is secretly dedicated to.
Both the eclipse of August 11th 1999 at 11:11 am. GMT, and the 9/9/99 dates sparked further synchronistic events for me that were sufficient proof at the time, that whatever it was I was doing it was working, and I was on some path or other, guided by wild spirits in the new electronic world. My own wildest dreams being enacted out by others who I considered my contemporaries in my loved-up state of mind.
WOIDS LYE TSOG by STEVEFLY
Fuelled by Bob's books and some good acid and in purchasing a book titled "Secret Chamber' by Robert Bauval on the day it was published in the UK, I set my sights on alerting the world to a probable Illuminati coup' on the Millennium point, a congress of capitalists interested in Egyptology, Freemasonry, the Skull And Bones society, CFR, IMF, UFO's, CIA, and the usual list of suspects this work grabbed me by the balls in 1999 and threw me up against the wall, mixing in Orion correlation theory I was sold, and clutching my RAW books I flipped back and forth through the pages looking for the millennium conspiracy, but, no luck, rather I saw evidence that you often find what your looking for.
"If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."--Ludwig Wittgenstein
Secret Chamber went on to the best seller list in the new age conspiracy book-market, and is the book that led me to the 'Stargate Conspiracy' by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, a book, in turn that I gave to Dr. Wilson in Palm Springs where he read some of it, even adding some critical commentary on occasion when asked by friends "what are you reading Bob?"
BOB touches on the characters and the cycling states of being, and of the forces and the shadowy agencies mentioned in Bauval's book. The Egyptian gods are a recurring theme within 'Cosmic Trigger', but there presented with Crowley's magickal glossing and invoked symbolically and textually into his own personal psychological scientific research, way beyond Bauval's at-arms-length research into these Egyptian dieties, in my opionion.
Careful focus and balanced attention to every sentence concerning the Goddesses' and the Gods became clear to me, at that time, his awareness of the socio-religio control mechanisms and 'shared intolerance' demonstrated by organized religions around the world today, and, the typically male dominated, patriot armoured--little men--that lead nations into illegal wars for dogma. A despertae lack of proper communication and a scientific research based, new hierarchy of humanitarian values. Make it new.
SCI ASPECTS OF H A L by STEVEFLY
Introduction to a dream:
"With their discovery that the patterns and logic of fairy tale and myth correspond to those of dream, the long discredited chimeras of archaic man have returned dramatically to the foreground of modern consciousness." --Joseph Campbell, From Psychology to Metaphysics, The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Pg. 255.
The fly Agaric fungus, known widely throughout world history and culture, is a species of particular interest to me for several reasons that have impinged on my nervous system to inspire me to adopt the nick-name ‘fly agaric 23’ as a creative avatar, a supra-self mythman.
Evidence that I feel strongly that the ‘fly agaric’ or 'Amanita Muscaria' holds special significance, in the sense that I propagated the meme in the fastest and most efficient way I could imagine at that time, adopting the thing of interest as a nick-name where Steven Pratt' fused with ‘fly agaric’ and the positive attributes I perceive of ‘fly agaric’, chemical, mythological, biological and neuro-linguistic. But I picked the name without having read any of the 'fly agaric' literature, so I hope not imply I have been plotting this adventure in dualism. My hope is to expose the 'meaningful coincidences' from the events of the last 13 years or so.
Steven James Pratt vs. Fly Agaric 23 is my exegesis on these positive attributes and the results of my Thirteen year experimental research as a drummer, DJ and writer. As you can already tell, I am writing my own autobiography and writing about oneself is never really fun, and brings u many challenges, but I find these the heart of getting around the writers block, towards a freedom of expression.
Elixirville 93 by STEVEFLY
I (Steven Pratt, born in Wordsley, 1976) have been building a knu personae' using music-poetry and some Magick to manifest an avatar “fly Agaric 23”a communicating vessel or extension application to Steven James Pratt. To help navigate cyberspace. (Steersman space)
I might add that in a similar way, the DJ character named Plush from my Novel 'OUR HISTORYS BACK' is a third extension of both 'Steven James Pratt and 'Fly Agaric 23', combining attributes to produce a new synthesis.
Fly by Name Game by nature?
Based upon some similar social and psychological influences that move some popular entertainers to change their name, maybe for the purpose of attaining better viral ‘meme’ infection rate? I went a step further and chose a word used to denote a particular species of fungus that is the subject of an impressive body of worldwide scientific research, but also, I discovered is the subject of secretive Military experiments, witchcraft and death-cults, which of course appealed to a teenager during his first encounters with psychedelic drugs, jazz and beat poetry. Plus, Amanita Muscaria comes up five times when searched in the 'Illuminatus Trilogy! by Shea and Wilson.
I added the 23’ to the fly agaric for cabalistic reason, when I discovered that my birth date 15/04/76 equals twenty three when taken as single digits, as does the year 1976, a stunning discovery to me at that time, around 1996.
I was pulled into the ’23 Enigma’ forever. And Amanita Muscaria is the 24th entry to the index at the back of Cosmic Trigger! I write elsewhere about RAW’s influences, but here I wish to add that Terence Mckenna and Timothy Leary were also an large influence on my decision to adopt the ‘fly agaric 23’ avatar, plus, my friends around me at that time who adopted nick-names and supra-selves in the name of Art and social change! This is basically a tale about a nick-name that stuck and then struck.
RAW & Fly Amanitanatus:
Around 1996 I had not read any of the following scholars listed in the context of what I now call ‘Fly Agaric Studies’. I formulated the hypothesis that the fly agaric mushroom might be a thorn in the side of worlds monotheistic religion's and the monsters who rage war on some people who use some drugs around the world. I was in search of the sacred.
"It is essentially a civil rights issue, because what we're talking about here is the repression of a religious sensibility. In fact, not a religious sensibility, the religious sensibility. Not built on some con game spun out by eunuchs, but based on the symbiotic relationship that was in place for our species for fifty thousand years before the advent of history, writing, priestcraft and propaganda. So it's a clarion call to recover a birthright.--Terence Mckenna, Non-Ordinary States Through Vision Plants (1988)"
Amanita is dubbed by Wilson on page 147 of Cosmic Trigger “ the most widely used sacred drug in the Old World” a biological psychoactive drug entity that I figured, in my milly mindedness' fitted perfectly with my musical ambitions, creating grooves for the turned on cats, underground, alternative, seductive and psychedelic all-at-once, with a nick name “fly” already in use, the addition of the Agaric 23 was a simple way to fix my new avatar into my social network at that time, soon after ‘fly agaric 23’ would manifest on dj event flyers, mix-tapes, posters and even albums, such as the 'Big Dada records' 1999 release: Equalibrium, by New Flesh For Old, on a track titled 'Quantum Mechanix.'
SEY YES (SOUNDTRACK TO MAYBELOGIC DVD MOVIE 2003) by STEVEFLY
“The cumulative evidence in such books as Dr. Andrija Puharich’s The Sacred Mushroom, John Allegro’s The Sacred Mushroom And The Cross, R. Gordon Wasson’s Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, Robert Graves’ revised fourth edition of The White Goddess, Professor Peter Furst’s Flesh Of The Gods, Dr. Western LaBarre’s The Peyote Cult and Ghost Dance: Origins of Religion, Margaret Murray’s The Witch Cult in Western Europe, etc., leaves little doubt that the beginning of Religion (awareness of, or at least belief in, Higher Intelligences) is intimately linked with the fact that--shamans in Europe, in Asia, in the Americas, in Africa—have been dosing their nervous systems with metaprogramming drugs since at least 30’000 B.C. –Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger, pg. 147.
Can Philosophy phlosofly?
During the decade of the naughties I have purposefully sourced out and read roughly three quarters of the above titles, plus many other related works in the field of mycology, psychedelic studies, and in particular ‘Fly Amanita' material: neuro-chemical, alchemical, mythological, botanical, paranormal, etymological, everything and anything I could find, some of which turned-up for me in the strangest of places. Most titles have been more widely available recently due to the sharing power of Internet.
LPS KEYS TOO by STEVEFLY
Fly hope to unify the unique symbiotic and etymological cross-roads, observable in nature, in ancient literature, fairy lore, medical journals, species taxonomy records, etc., of the 'Amanita Muscaria' (the red and white spotted fly agaric), flies' (drosophilia melanogaster), toads and mushroom munching human Apes. This network of connectivity between different species, spills out from the worlds of scientific taxonomy into the dark recesses of alchemy, magick, shamanism. MING.
Flies are attracted to the Amanita mushroom's sweet n' sour scent, drink sap and fall drunk, providing an easy meal for any hungry toad that may have picked up this evolutionary knowledge over the past few hundred thousand years. Remarkably this relationship has manifested in our common phrase “Toadstool”. The Colorado Bufo’ toad (Bufo Alvarius) and some other species of Toad actually carry a highly psychoactive substance on their backs. Why have humans evolved receptors to these natural highs? Some of these questions are addressed in my reworking of the W.B Yeats play: At The Hawks Well.
PUTNEY COPENHAGEN by STEVEFLY
Poisonous: DO NOT EAT, Fly.
Some mushrooms and some toads carry psychedelic drugs and this symbiotic relationship found in nature, seems important to me, because I view any naturally occurring psychotropic compound as an antenna, or portal with which to communicate with a particular sphere of consciousness.
Alcohol, coffee, tobacco, sugar, marijuana are drugs to enable access to certain altered state's of consciousness, and although the question of defining an un-altered state of consciousness remains a tricky one for me, I propose that those plants and processes' that stimulate alterations in human consciousness are of importance for scientific medicine, psychology, and philosophy. And I feel are critical for any definition of humanity. JEN JIN CHING MING. Humanitas.
TSOG MASH SNARK by STEVEFLY
Our brains have evolved intricate chemical locks especially shaped for the psychoactive drugs, we have been hardwired to get high it seems and I pay a special significance to this fact. This neurological fact might provide good feedback to defining the wrong headedness associated with the failed, and failing, 'prohibition policy' towards some drugs, but interestingly Amanita Muscaria is not a scheduled drug in most countries, rather simply labelled Poisonous: DO NOT EAT. Most human deaths that occur from eating Mushrooms are from eating Amanita's without a clear understanding of dosage. Low doses are more likely to give a medicinal effect, medium doses a aphrodisiac-like effect and high doses Visionary. But these doses vary depending on what species, what geographical location and all the personal details of the individual.
Three Major Textual Influenzas
There are three texts, besides those mentioned by RAW, and RAW’s works themselves that I would recommend as head-texts that helped shape my ‘fly agaric 23’ avatar, they are: Peter Lamborn Wilson’s 'Ploughing The Clouds: The Search For Irish Soma', Terence Mckenna’s 'True Hallucinations', and Giorgio Samorini’s 'Animals and Psychedelics.'
Arms Durber Trilogy by STEVEFLY
Fly licks some sap of evolutionary epistemology, Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, poetry, neuro-logical relativism, Constructivist Epistemology and the questions of consciousness, synchronicity, ESP, and digests material directly associated with RAW’s interests such as the fallibility of the human nervous system, social philosophy, together with the defining ingredient of humanitas, and the multiculture of the global village, on the tongue.
Seeking the High Priest of Synchronicity to find the King of coincidence.
After a house fire and many marvellous dreams at the turn of the Millennium I decided to go seek Dr. Wilson in the USA, who seemed to me to have the best looking blueprint for culutral revolution and posed the best questions.
Whatever he put his gaze to seemed to dissolve into a range of new models and possibilities of interpretation, always teaming with well sourced references and new characters who were alive and continuing the work today,covering the bases of modern thought in a comprehensive, encyclopedic epic web of scientific philosophy.
Moving the mind in many directions at once. Bob seemed to have all the secrets about those shadowy bastards, those fuckers back there behind the scenes pulling strings, RAW had the facts and the information and the ability to logically communicate it that I felt maybe capable of toppling authoritarian dogma everywhere and anywhere it spread, all-at-once in a flash. I was so enthralled by the power of RAW’s optimistic brain food that I also became really high and optimistic and due to the lack of Robert Anton Wilson media in my immediate environment I figured that I should make a journey to go and make some. Why not?
AMSTERDAM FREEDOM WITH LOVE by STEVEFLY
I planned to go to the Prophets Conference in Sante Fe, New Mexico and record RAW live with my mini-disc recorder, and then, race home to use the recordings in new songs, produced to spread RAW wisdom across the dance floor and the airwaves wherever possible.
Ste Millennium tension:
It was April 2000 A.D, the Millennium was our oyster, our generation of tech-wizards, DJ’s, street writers, ravers, trippers and smokers that were rising up against the old order of authoritarian rule, the government fraudsters, militarists and corporate bullies.
After the powerfully inspiring images of the 1999 Seattle protests together with the equally inspired local ‘reclaim the streets’ protest in Birmingham I was convinced something wonderful was happening, the shitstem' could not hold much longer I thought, we are rising up and a new generation of non-violent folk who are organized and determined to be heard are here now, having bare fun in the face of authority.
For me the great dream of an alternative drug policy to prohibition and a responsible decriminalization method, at least concerning Marijuana, seemed just around the corner. The IRA had stopped their bombing campaign, and the war in Bosnia cleared up pretty fast. Consciousness became the great frontier once more, art and culture made leaps and bounds in a matter of months, 1996-200, telecommunications changed everything for us, the global village was waking up at the Millennium.
New and encouraging scientific study’s were being published around the world, and Millions joined in efforts directed at letting their governments know that in the case of Marijuana, millions of smoke it often and you cannot stop us all or jail us all. And, 'why not save a lot of money, time, effort, and human humiliation and change the damn failed prohibition model--Lawmakers--please, consider adopting a new model based on the new research and latest studies from around the world, please adopt a responsible global drug policy that puts human lives and harm-reduction at the top of its priority list so that we can define humanity more clearly. Most Cannabis users and psychedelic users I have met have a similar humanitarian streak that can be distinguished from Alchohol and Cocaine users, who, from my experience often exhibit the intolarence of strong patriotism and small town mentality.
TSOG MASH DNB by STEVEFLY
In my naive optimism I thought that simply communicating the great scientific research from the likes of Robert Anton Wilson, Tim' Leary, Mckenna, Lilly and others would be sufficient to influence policy, or at least help them formulate good questions and have some good debate. Unbridled optimism was the order of the day, and I thought I knew what needed to be done, fly agaric was on a mission.
RA HO TEP RECON FENCE.
The conference in Santa Fe turned up a number of meaningful coincidences' and remarkable meetings that set me on the trajectory to spending almost five years in the United States, meeting and studying with RAW and basically, living out an American dream so full of synchronicity and remarkable meetings that I suspect many will question my claim that it was an 'unplanned trip' to and around about the United Snakes.
The first major coincidence I was confronted with in Santa Fe was my meeting of two young pot smoking, John Lilly and Robert Anton Wilson fans who also shared my birthday, April 15th.
Oily Thursday at Finnegans Wake by STEVEFLY
I mention that they were John Lilly fans because they had a copy of the rare and out of print “Programming and Metaprogramming the Human Bio-computer” with them, that they were keen to share with me at their hotel room, little did he know that only two weeks later I would be meeting with Dr. Lilly face to face and working as a volunteer at a week-long symposium held in his honour called “Gilding The Lilly”, and that to my astonishment featured Jack Sarfatti, Saul Paul Sirag, scientists I was loosely familiar with from the writings of RAW' himself.
The second meaningful coincidence that struck me on my birthday, in Santa Fe, was realized when the sad announcement was made that Robert was ill and could not make it to the event due to his deteriorating health. It was at this moment, in a flash, while I was receiving a round of sympathetic applause from six-hundred or so new age witches and war-locks for travelling so far from Birmingham to the conference, that I recalled a dream I had had roughly 6 months previously in which I was sitting in my ex-college mobile classroom awaiting RAW, a class of us, excited and waiting for him to arrive, but of course in my dream RAW never arrived.
I have the dream in my notebooks that will soon be available along with this text, to show just one of the corresponding events between my inner-space and outer-reality. But I was not so innocently just bumping into synchronicity now, I was seeking it somewhat, looking for adventure, experimenting with visualization, seeing new connections between new things.
This positive worldview certainly churned up some interesting results in my realm-time experienced existential reality, characters from Cosmic Trigger were showing up in the flesh, and the author himself was right around the corner, no, here, right where you are sitting now. In fact.
S.F Bezerkley
Within 2 months of living in Berkeley California I was plugged into a network of characters that already seemed impossible to dream up, a real Philip K. Dick plot, and this was made possible by the wonderful close friends of mine who temporarily adopted me in and enabled me to stay in the bay area. To drop names not bombs heres a few I had shared space with in S.F: Dennis Mckenna, Mark Pesce, Erik Davis, Bruce Sterling, Michio Kaku, Ralph Abraham, Edgar Mitchell, and many more of that cutting edge techno-shamanistic tribe that already resonated with ‘fly agaric’ on some levels.
Most of these remarkable meetings were made possible by my loose affiliation with the audio-archivist organization called soundphotosynthesis, and, as a volunteer I was fortunate to meet a colorful array of scientists, artists, musicians and kind friends at the events I worked at. I worked on editing audio/video material from the Sound Photo Archive shortly after I returned to San Francisco in December 2000.
Maybe I was naive to be hanging around with a bohemian group of scientists and intellectuals flaunting my music, asking shallow questions hacked out of something I read, but, I made incredible friends and had many priceless adventures through this synchro 'net-mesh' on the edge of a paradigm shift lifted out from a page of Cosmic Trigger IV.
Flight AA23.
The journeyman returned to the UK in July 2000 with a hell of a tale to tell, and with a heedfull' of new ideas and new characters to include in my new wish list of human's capable of turning the world on, and making sense of a paradigm shift sweeping upon us all, or something high flying and important like that.
One drizzly day in setember I was checking my email at the local library and, to my astonishment I had a note from the organizers of the Prophets Conference asking me if I would like to join RAW at the up-coming con/ to be held in Palm Springs, due to the fact that Bob now required a care-giver due to him being confined to a wheel chair.
I remember a huge smile striking my face, somehow in the relatively short period of approx. 5 years since I first encountered his work I had the rare chance to meet and probably hang with someone who I regarded as the smartest guy on the planet, and the greatest hope for all-humanity to read and wise up to. 2000 A.D and the global village was awakening.
When my air ticket to Chicago arrived in the mail I was dazzled to read: flight number 'AA23' and promptly flashed it to Richard Metzger, Brian Jones and Bob in his hotel room on the evening we all got high together in Palm Srings.
Bright Knife-Blade-Voice
Without any planned accomadation in Palm Springs I simply walked out the airport with my bags, and explored the strange looking city, roamed around, ate a cheese bagel, and roamed some more.
After shopping at a small store for bread and cream cheese I found myself half a mile from the store, walking up a long Palm Springs boulevard to discover I did not have a knife or tool to slice bread or spread cream cheese. Moments after I realized this fact, walking up a long concrete path flanked by neat spiky green grass, something caught the corner of my right eye, glistening in the sunlight, I looked and to my astonishment spotted a stainless steel knife sticking out from the grassy knowl.
Hesitating I finally plucked the knife from the grass, wiped it clean on my jeans and carried on walking while enjoying my cream-cheese roll in some style. I hereby swear this tale is true, and this has me baffled to this day.
Super-String Theory: Hidden Chamber Arkestra
I met Surinder Sandhue on a council led music class for the unemployed held in Dudley around 1997. After more than 2 years of collaboration outside of the class I manufactured 200 ten inch vinyl records featuring 3 tracks: SUPERSTRING THEORY movement one', and 'movement two' and 'Ganga Puja'.
GANGA PUJA: FIBONACCII PROJECT (SECRET CHAMBER ARKESTRA) by STEVEFLY
Terence Mckenna, Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, Hakim Bey, Ken Kessey and William S. Burroughs were the authors I was tripping with in the late 1990's, plus Michio Kaku whose 1994 book "Hyperspace" influenced me to take on 'super-string theory' as a new piece of additional data in my theory of 'synchronicity'.
In the context of the chapter from Cosmic Trigger titled: ERP and BELL's Theorem, I, in my tiny mind, thought I might help give creedence to RAW's multi-world model's and methodological multi-verse theory, communicated in various stylistic textual methodologies, or books you might say. You can see the photographs included in this book, of the SUPERSTRING THEORY vinyl disks that I created to honour this strong intuition.
VALID V.A.L.I.S
Jumping forward a few years, I was sitting at a lecture held in San Francisco (actually, due to RAW not showing in Santa Fe' at the Prophets Conference 14-16 April 2000 A.D., I decided to take the grey-dog up to San Francisco where some kind folks I met had invited me to stay with them there, more adventurous than simply catching my flight home) where Saul Paul Sirag was presenting information based upon mathematician G. Spencer Brown and the "Laws Of Form". I spoke with Saul briefly, and with Jack Sarfatti who I had had some previous contact through email, and who I was somewhat familiar with from reading Quantum Psychology, The Illuminati Papers and Cosmic Trigger.
PORPOISE CORPSUS by STEVEFLY
Jack and Jack and the Coffee.
Late May 2000 A.D, I met an incredible Jazz bass player at yet another conference called "PLANETWORKERS", who synchronistically was playing a show that week with a Berkeley based pianist called Jack Perla, Jack had recently collaborated with my musical buddy from Wolverhampton Surinder, along with another Berkeley based saxophone and clarinet player called George Brooks. I was aware of these characters too, from hanging out in Surinder's studio (98-2000) and felt a strange loop kick in while chatting with Kai.
Due to this notable synchronicity, I got the crazy notion to produce a collaborative project between Jack Perla the pianist and Jack Sarfatti the post-quantum physicist. What might have been something I thought up using my turntables and minidisc recorder rig six months ago had manifested itself as a strong physical collaborative possibility in existensial spacetime. Wow.
I arranged a meeting between the three of us at a Cafe' in Northbeach and It turned out not to have lead to any collaborative musical recordings between us, but an interview at Jack's apartment with Saul Paul Sirag himself, that I have only recently transcribed and hyperlinked, here. Maybe I will remix some of Jack Perla's Piano and Jack Sarfatti's post-quantum lecture material together someday?
The Net
So I seemed to have physically entered Doctor John Lilly's "Network", as described by RAW in Cosmic Trigger, and what's remarkable is that I was somewhat aware of this network, in as much as I was aware that John Lilly appears throughout the book that had pulled me into this synchro-mesh. Now, I thought, I have some evidence and some proof. I can bring back the knowledge gained from some of the architect's of that book and begin to show and share some of the scientific principles contained within.
BICYCLING IN BOMBAY: GARAJ MAHAL by STEVEFLY
I was very fortunate to be playing music with a variety of Bay Area musicians, among them a recently formed jam band project called Garaj Mahal, who kindly shared their stage, recordings and music with me throughout the rest of my American journey up to October 31st 2005.
METAMONDO SHADOW MASH-UP by STEVEFLY
This combination of music and science, and open psychedelic studies was a huge influence on me and helped me realize a better society, generally, where the Police were pretty tolerant of Marijuana smoking, and art and artists were out on the streets and in the parks, out among the community. I could sense the torsion field carved by the 1960's cultural explosion.
The local business model and economy were seemingly centered around creative industries, although unbeknownst to me I was in San Francisco on the cusp of the dot com crash. But to me the telecommunication infrastructure was 20 years ahead of what I knew growing up in the black country and the crooked intolerant' Dudley council.
Bob Marley and the Wailer's
After being hired as DJ for a week at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, I decided to stay on in NOLA, being that I had finally met back up with my two friends from Sante Fe' 3 years later, who I shared my birthday with.
I was in full support and total Ecstasy of Ben's idea to take a road trip in his SUV all the way to Santa Cruz where Bob was guest of honor at the premier of the documentary movie MAYBELOGIC: THE LIVES AND IDEAS OF ROBERT ANTON WILSON. With associate producer credits generously given to 'fly agaric 23'.
The movie was to open on the 23rd of July, 2003, and we had to go. Besides finding a hot stash of RAW titles on the road and tripping balls in the Moab desert, Las Vegas Casino's and beyond, one memorable and remarkable synchronistic intersection point stands out for me.
While on the road with Ben we had a stash of CD's and were listening to the radio infrequently, but on one occasion we did listen to the radio while it played a Bob Marley and The Wailers song, we listened to it because we had just been playing a Bob Marley Album on CD and we had just reached the west most tip of San Francisco, literally on the beach after travelling for eight days from way down in Louisiana.
When the classic song ended we were both shocked to hear the radio presenter dedicate the Wailer's song to the huge whale that had washed up on the same beach that we parked at, in fact, the huge headless whale corpse was only roughly five hundred meters from us. This must have been around July 21st 2003 I believe.
Ben and I made it to the movie premier and were fortunate to bump into bob making an exit out of the back door to the theatre. We were taking a reefer break and Ben asked him some question that I now forget, and Bob answered with a few words climbing into the old black Jaguar that then sped off into the Santa Cruz night.
BEAR HOME MIX: DJ FLY AGARIC 23 by flyagaric23
From Toad Slime To Ectasy
Since meeting for dinner with RAW, Nancy and Paul Krassner at the Prophets Con. Palm Springs I loosely kept in touch by email. One day in 2002 while I was working at the record Label Cosmic Flux Musiq based on Haight and Filmore street, San Francisco, I received email from Paul informing everyone he was compiling a book of 'anecdotal' drug tales and would be accepting submissions, so that night I worked on a very short story describing my first Psilocybin journey at age 16 and then sent it off the same week.
To my astonishment and gratitude to Paul the story was included in the book that was first published in 2003 by Ronin Press, but has since moved to 'ten speed press', with the title 'MAGIC MUSHROOMS AND OTHER HIGHS: FROM TOAD SLIME TO ECSTASY'. I was pretty surprised to find that Paul has used the 'fly agaric' infused reindeer piss, piss drinking shamans analogy, combined in close proximity with a joke about licking the top right hand corner of page 23, to get high loaded.
9th Septermber 1999 at nine minutes past nine.
Graffiti artist CHU and I had arranged to record a happening at around 9.00 P.M, under the stourbridge viaduct with drums, shakers, voice-box and two recordings devices, a dictaphone and a minidisc. The results can be heard within the audio archive, here.
The amazing synchronicity that Chu and I were a part of that night on our way to the viaduct was the intersection of two double-dekker buses right in front of us, as we crossed the road. The bus that travels from Birmingham to Stourbridge is the number nine bus. Part of our subsequent adventures are partially chronicled at the godisturber web page.
Synchronic Wake
As I hope you have noticed by now I am leaning heavy on my experiences of synchronicity to pinpoint the dates and places upon my ten year journey. Combined with the process of tabulating my dream diaries and notebooks from over this period I aim to create a new digitally networked interface, whereby others can sift through the media I have correlated from my research and expereinces so far.
I hope that this process will keep within my philosophical outlook that recently gained traction from the combination of reading Joseph Campbell's book 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces, and watching the movie 'McLuahn's Wake' just a weeks after diving back into C.G. Jung's 'Mankind and His Symbols', in preparation for my own dream interpretations.
Shannanigums Wave Book III Chapter 11 Page 67. by flyagaric23
Pick N' Mix rag bag.
In writing this autobiographical account of my trip to the US I feel it necessary at this early stage to pay further tribute to Dr. Wilson and his work in progress 'the tale of the tribe' that features approx. thirteen characters that carry us through the ages of modern man into post modern, 21st century neurospace.
This network of characters and there ideas are therefore attractive for applying to many other areas of research, which for me has grown into an interactive novel-game called 'OUR HISTORYS BACK' but here I wish to turn the tribe on 'fly agaric' or rather some of the principles I have been expounding on so far, namely, epistemology, mythology, birth-death-rebirth cycles, synchronicity, symbiosis, etc,.
The recurring theme I see is the process of becoming over and over again, as consciousness maybe akin to a tape loop, recording and erasing and remembering somethings. In particular Bruno, Vico, Nietzsche, Yeats, Pound, Joyce and McLuhan can be somewhat generalized as having process oriented motions through their works, the the turning of a spiral-vortex of energy, accumulative, the living cosmos, the recorsi.
Coincidance Town 111 by STEVEFLY
Philosofly & Finnegans Awake
Tens of Zillions of critters get high, fall down, sleep and wake up into nature, and this universal process of inebriation can be scientifically demonstrated as a chemical processes in the nervous system. Evolution through inebriation, may therefore imply chemical compounds found naturally abundant such as Peyote buttons, Psilocybin mushrooms, Cannabis, Amanita Caps, etc,. that contain the right chemical mixture and alchemical neurological harmony to bring about vivid highs, sleeps and wakes as we witness in every facet of life.
Lewis Carroll incorporated these chemical reactions into "Alice through the looking glass", utilizing a 'spacetime' morphing literary device, and he included the toadstool symbolism.
The awakening, uprising, resurrection, and coming again, commodius vicus orecirculation, epiphanies, comfortably communicate the "epiphany in synchronicity" I get when reading Joyce's 'Finnegans Wake'.
Magical resurrections can be witnessed, by the seeker in the process about which the Book lends it's title 'Finnegans Wake: an irish Ballad in which a fallen Tim Finnegan is presumed dead, but then springs back to life at his own wake, spirited up out of his coffin by some spilt elixer, song, dance and tales.
Drunken fruit flies, Drunken Amanita eaters and Tim Finnegan communicate my philosofly of evolution through inebriation, partly, and modified from the Lazarus hypothesis put forward by the Italian Botanist Giorgio Samorini.
Final thoughts upon final thoughts of a final (vinyl) theory
In a hazelnut shell, I figure the world is best described as language itself, to propose anything else other than language is romantic and sweet, but ultimately leads to confusion, paradox and terrible surprises of primal beauty.
Therefore my philosophy of Filosofly is what I do, I write and investigate the mythological and etymological pastures where Amanita Musicaria grows, with the added satisfaction of having a large body of academic works on the subject to construct my hypernetwork of connections.
My travels and tales reflect how I picked up some of these ideas and what I have done with them, my synthesis. I hope that others might use some of them, especially the synchroniticities and dreams' that have been somewhat out of my consious control and contain strange interference from an unknown organizing synergy. All feedback is welcome.
--Steve Fly Agaric 23.
FLY AGARIC STUDIOS
AMSTERDAM
Edited Feb. 2010.
GOATHERTZFLY by STEVEFLY
DJ FLY AT STUDIO Z S.F 2005.
